Planning for Mobile Holidays

It’s no surprise that consumers’ mobile behavior spikes during holidays. People are away from their desks, enjoying the weather, spending time with their family, their friends and of course, their phones. Some marketers also give their ad campaigns time off during the holidays or set them and forget them at the turn of each month. Savvy marketers know better. Just how much opportunity does this consumer behavioral shift create for capitalizing on holidays? And how should they plan ahead for the patterned shift in consumer behavior?

First, let’s take a look at the behavior itself as exhibited through the ownerIQ platform. Our vast network of pixeled retailer and product brand sites gives a unique perspective on holiday shopping.

As shown in the chart below, we see consistent bumps in mobile shopping behavior on weekends. But when you dive into a specific holiday, the 4th of July in this case, you see a similar single-day spike in consumers shopping on mobile.

Consumers are not just browsing on their mobile devices on holidays, though. They’re also making purchases. In fact, over 50% of purchases made on retailer sites on the 4th of July were made on mobile devices, which represents an increase of 30% over typical Tuesdays.

Paired with the shift in consumer shopping behavior to mobile, programmatic ad campaigns offer the unique opportunity to reach in-market shoppers when they’re shopping and on the device they’re using to shop. Addressable inventory on the open exchanges makes a similar shift.

The sudden influx of mobile inventory has a ripple effect on the economics of programmatic bidding. Campaigns vying for desktop impressions see increased competition. If your campaign is treating holidays like any other weekday, you’ll end up paying more for impressions on desktop, where consumers aren’t even making purchases! Campaigns with earmarked mobile spend win big on holidays because they have more inventory to select from, less competition, and lower prices for impressions on mobile.

The Bottom Line

The most effective campaigns on our platform are run by marketers who plan ahead. These are the marketers who break free from the month-to-month campaign approach and invoke their foresight to create mobile budgets and special mobile initiatives for holidays.